MURRIETA  There are a variety of reasons why students have flocked to Li Yang's Mandarin Chinese classes at Murrieta Mesa High School the last four years.

Some are drawn to study language because of China's position as an emerging economic superpower. Others desire to communicate with relatives who speak one of the many dialects of Mandarin, the most-spoken language in the world. And a few see it as a slightly exotic intellectual challenge.

According to Yang, the 'cool' factor is at play, too.

"Some kids feel like the language is cool," she said. "It's so different compared with English, Spanish, French. It looks different, and they want to figure out why it was created this way."

According to figures provided by the American Council on Teaching Foreign Languages, Mandarin Chinese is a rising star on the national language education scene.

Studies of public schools commissioned by the group reveal that there were approximately 5,000 students studying Mandarin in the U.S. in 2000. Today, according to Executive Director Marty Abbott, that figure is about 150,000.

"It used to be something we saw on the coasts," Abbott said. "Now it's everywhere. We're hearing from South Carolina, we're hearing from South Dakota. When schools have an option of putting in a new language, by far it's Mandarin."

Mesa High student Laura Clayton was thinking about becoming an architect, until she took drafting.

"Then I realized I definitely didn't want to," she said.

Mandarin was quite the opposite, a subject she took to almost immediately. Now she says she would like to study linguistics and possibly apply those skills some day as a translator. In the meantime, she found a clever household application for her newfound skill.

"I actually trained my dogs in Chinese," said Clayton, a junior who has been taking Mandarin classes since she was a freshman. "I taught them how to stay, go, wait and watch me."

So easy, even a dog could learn it? Not exactly, there are 4,000 characters used to write the language. The Defensive Language Group classifies languages based on their difficulty. Category I is the easiest and includes Spanish and French. Mandarin falls into Category IV, the most difficult to learn.

Clayton, who is now taking Chinese 3, the most advanced course offering at Murrieta Mesa, said she has grown comfortable with the language despite the lack of an alphabet. She said she occasionally dreams in Mandarin.

"When I see the characters I kind of associate a sound with it, which helps a lot," she said.

Yang was brought on as a part-time teacher when she was hired in 2009. At the time she had 26 students. Now she is employed full-time and this year has 130 students. Abbott said teachers have a lot to do with stoking interest in the language.

"As we know from research, it's all about the teachers," Abbott said. "It's boots on the ground, and kids vote with their feet. They're interested in relevancy. They want a teacher who's engaging."

Murrieta Mesa Principal Mary Walters, who hired Yang when the school opened in 2009, said next year she hopes to add a Chinese 4 class and Advanced Placement Chinese.

"What my charge was when I opened up this high school was to prepare kids for the 21st century," Walters said. "Well that's preparation to work in a global environment. China is huge if you're thinking about a global economy. And if you need to work with the Chinese, you need to know the language."